


Beam Me Up

by Whyistheskyblue



Series: You Can be My Compass [4]
Category: Marvel (Movies), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Gen, Science Boyfriends, Science Bros, Tony and Bruce are geniuses, Transporter technology, light humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-28
Updated: 2013-06-30
Packaged: 2017-12-16 11:30:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/861506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whyistheskyblue/pseuds/Whyistheskyblue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony and Bruce really love Science Fiction. Like, <i>really</i> love science fiction. So what's any self respecting sci fi fan/genius going to do at some point? Make transporters, of course.<br/><i>Should not</i> be read as a stand alone.</p><p> Previously "A Little Bit Like Star Trek"</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Consider yourself pre warned - my sciences of specialty are chemistry and genetics. I barely got through AP Physics I with a 'B' average. Any physics I talk about in this story should be taken with a grain of salt.

Someone was shaking his shoulder, pulling him into the murky twilight between dream and reality. He groaned and rolled over, swatting the hands away. 

“Bruce.” Tony pleaded. “Bruce! I have an idea.” Bruce recognized that tone of voice. It was his 'I'm Anthony Edward Stark, genius billionaire playboy philanthropist, and I will get my way so help me god' voice. 

“What's this idea, that you've decided to wake me up at this ungodly hour?” Bruce sighed, groping around the nightstand until his fumbling fingers sent his glasses toppling to the floor. The energetic inventor bounded over the side of the bed, scooping them up. 

“First off,” Tony began, straddling Bruce's lap as the physicist pushed himself into a sitting position, “it's not an ungodly hour. It's almost four.” Tony pouted adorably, his face becoming clear as he slotted the glasses onto Bruce's face. “Second off, it's the particle transporter.” 

“Four is an ungodly hour when you kept me up until midnight, Tony.” The mutant sighed. 

“You enjoyed being kept up.” The scientist wagged his eyebrows suggestively, leaning in to capture Bruce's mouth, nipping at his lower lip. 

“Kissing after idea.” Bruce pushed the genius out of his lap, smiling at his mock wounded expression as he tumbled off the bed. 

“Come on then!” Tony was instantly on the feet, bouncing as he shifted from one foot to the other. 

“I need pants.” The scientist pointed out, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. The genius waited (as patiently as he ever got) for Bruce to pull old sweats from the bottom drawer and shimmy into them. 

“Come on.” Tony demanded, not waiting for the mutant to find a shirt. His fingers threaded through Bruce's, tugging him along as he stumbled into the hallway. 

“Coffee?” Bruce asked hopefully as they passed through the kitchen. 

“Dummy made some downstairs.” The genius rushed, already tugging the other down the steps. “Come on!” 

“How much coffee have you had?” 

“I dunno?” The words fell off his lips easily. “I had an idea, and you were asleep, but now I need to run it by you.” 

“Jarvis?” Bruce asked wearily, stepping through the glass door. The pressure seal clipped shut behind him. 

“Sir came down to the lab shortly after you fell asleep, Dr. Banner. He has only had three cups thus far.” Jarvis informed him. Bruce smiled. That meant Tony wasn't running on a purely caffeine fueled high; that this idea truly warranted this level of enthusiasm. Dummy beeped at his elbow, holding out his 'Frankie says Relax!' mug. The physicist took it with a smile, wrapping his hands around the warm porcelain. 

“What's the point in having a super sexy science boyfriend if you can't share your ideas with him?” Tony pouted, a crease forming between his eyebrows. Bruce smiled, waiting for him to show him the latest project. “Particle transmitter, right.” Tony skittered to the welding station in the very back. “So, we had the basic idea down. We could transport inanimate objects from pad to pad. Very useful for shipping and stuff.” The genius waved his hands dismissively. “So the next step was being able to transport animate objects.” 

“Tony, I helped code for most of this. I know what's going on.” 

“Interrupting much?” Tony demanded, waiting for Bruce to fall silent again. “We got it very Star Trek, Scotty. We could get people from pad to pad.” Bruce nodded along, knowing Tony would get to the point when he was ready. “The next step, pad to coordinates.” 

“That's what we've been working on.” Bruce agreed. 

“And I got it, see? Jarvis, role tape.” 

“Rolling, sir.” A projection flickered to life in the middle of the room. A muted Tony was talking at Jarvis and racing around the room, setting the blocks they had been practicing with on the pad, pressing buttons, and typing coordinates into the computer. The screen next to him flickered to life, showing the foyer of the Malibu house. A light flashed in the lab before, moments later, flashing on the screen. 

“Jarvis confirmed they were the same mass and in the same order as when transported.” Tony sucked in a deep breath, grinning from ear to ear. Bruce liked all the variations of Tony to different degrees. Tired Tony was cute; handsy Tony could be annoying, but when he was in the mood, well; CEO Anthony was probably his least favorite, the persona who only came out at press conferences. Tony always went on a bender after a particularly long stretch of being forced into this version. He was Bruce's least favorite, all self loathing, sharp smiles, and snarky answers. His favorite Tony, however, was inventing Tony. This incarnation was smiles and boundless energy, almost dancing through the lab as ideas took shape and flew from his fingertips. 

“And?” Bruce prompted, knowing Tony wouldn't have dragged him from bed without reason. 

“What if we miniaturized the pads and gave them a set number of launches to a specific set of coordinates or pad?” The words tripped over each other as they stumbled from Tony's mouth. Bruce turned the idea over in his mind, finally realizing why Tony had gotten him. 

“You would need an energy source small enough to travel, but powerful enough to fuel the jump from an unknown distance.” The first time they had tested a jump, twelve blocks of Manhattan had lost power for five minuets. The press had gone crazy. 

“I though maybe little arc reactors like mine,” Tony tapped his chest “but I don't really want to give the SHIELD the chance to take one apart, you know?” Bruce understood the genius's well vocalized reluctance to share the schematics. The story had even made it to the village he had been staying with in India when it first hit the air. Each pad was now hooked to a generator sized reactor that ran (like the large one in SI labs) off of fusion energy instead of palladium. 

Bruce wandered over to his station, the small island of order in the madness that was The Lab. Bruce had a lab of his own, as did Tony, but most of their work was done in this joint space. It was a haven where they could bounce ideas off each other, chatter, or just enjoy the dance that was science as they flitted around the shared machines. A twist of his hand pulled up several tabs that he had docked, mostly dealing with alternate energy. The clean energy agenda was SI's new way of maintaining political clout now that Tony had trashed weapons manufacturing. It didn't help, of course, that the inventor refused to share the mini arc reactor (which was far more efficient than anything else they had thought up thus far). Bruce frowned, flicking through the pages. None of these were – wait. He went back. 

“Found it.” He smiled several hours later, flicking the page over to Tony's screen. The inventor laughed, spinning his chair around to face Bruce. 

“Are you serious?” He asked, a smile flickering at the edges of his lips. 

“Mock tesseract crystals could work.” The doctor argued, resting his forearms on his knees. 

“Like we did for Loki?” The smile broke free from the restraints Tony had attempted to place on it. 

“Loki's configuration required gamma crystals to stabilize the force field controlling his magic, but the theory is the same.” Bruce agreed. 

“Let's get to it, big guy!” 

“Sleep first, Tony.” Bruce sighed. Too little sleep was already getting to him, despite the coffee Dummy had refilled. 

“But – ” The inventor began, indignant. Bruce was already crossing the room, leading Tony much as the genius had led him earlier. 

“Fun, then sleep.” Bruce promised, winking. Tony swallowed audibly. 

“Then science?” His voice had a breathless tremor. 

“Then science.” The mutant agreed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've finally gotten the hang of this 'writing multiple things at once' business. This series will be updated daily (if not multiple times a day), but I won't always be working on the same piece.


	2. Chapter 2

“She's counting cracks in the wall by my head, pretending that she's listening.” Tony was singing, voice leaking from under the shower door. “Oh but saying it's all been preplanned in God's hands doesn't make you a Christian.” Bruce levered himself put of bed, crossing the room on sleep heavied feet. “Just pray a little harder. Just like singing under water.” Bruce slipped inside the cracked the door. “Well your grip held me so hard, your fingers left a mark.” 

“That's not AC/DC or Black Sabbath.” Bruce commented, raising an eyebrow. “I'd go so far as to call that folk.” 

“Ever been to Austin, Texas?” Tony asked, not bothering to turn to look at the other man. 

“Not for pleasure, no.” 

“Well I went a couple years ago, got bored at a charity thing, and ended up wandering sixth street on a Tuesday night.” Tony shrugged. “Some kid named Ben Balmer was playing the Austin version of folk, and I might have bought the CD.” Bruce ran water over his face, letting the cool contrast to his murky environment shock him awake. 

“Okay, Tony.” He smirked. 

“Hey! Austin music takes on a class of its own!” 

“Whatever you say.” Bruce held his hands up in mock surrender. “I'm making pancakes, for breakfast.” He threw over his shoulder as he turned to leave. 

“With chocolate chips?” The inventor asked hopefully, his words rising over sound of the falling water. 

“Sure.” The mutant agreed. 

  


“These are the schematics we have left from when the tesseract was in SHIELD custody.” Tony smiled, pulling the information onto the main screen. “This is what we have from working on Loki's bling.” A new set of data popped up next to the original set. 

“They're different.” Bruce frowned, tilting his head in confusion. The difference was almost unnoticeable. A slightly different input output ratio in one column, a data shift in another. 

“Bingo!” Tony grinned. “The crystals we were working with when we were dealing with the Loki problem were slightly less powerful than the actual tesseract.” 

“Implying that, once separated from the tesseract, the chipped off pieces slowly loose power.” Bruce mused, adjusting his glasses. 

“But according to Thor, those pieces had been chipped off for millennium, so it's not exactly a big problem.” The billionaire countered. The two let their ideas zip around the room, the words colliding like a fireworks display of genius, little bursts of neurons channeling the electric impulses that contained thought. 

  


The pair settled into a comfortable silence once the planning stage was done, Bruce working off of their previous blue prints to make the crystals, Tony designing a receiver that would convert the tesseract output into the type of fusion energy the transporters were currently designed to use. In a brief fit of frustration Tony called Bruce over. The problem was the tesseract energy ran too hot; it fried all the metals he had tried working with. Bruce (sweet, wonderful, genius Bruce) suggested coating the parts that would be in direct contact with the crystals in adamantium, and he was off again. 

“Sir,” Jarvis interrupted once the delicate process of fashioning the crystals was done. “Agent Romanova is at the door.” 

“Tell her were busy.” Tony said distractedly, waving his hand in the general direction of the door. “We're almost done.” 

“Almost is a relative term.” Bruce yawned, beckoning Dummy over to fill his coffee. A quick glance at his wrist told him they'd been working for nearly twelve hours without break. 

“She's quiet insistent, sir. And she's brought sandwiches.” You chirped forlornly from the corner at the mention of sandwiches, the dunce hat Tony had told him to put on hanging at a nearly impossible angle. 

“No You, Tony doesn't want someone to make him a sandwich.” Bruce told the bot gently. 

“She's requested I tell Doctor Banner there is peanut butter and jam.” Bruce's stomach chose that moment to let out a particularly noisy growl. 

“Damn spy knows all the secrets.” Tony grumbled, grinning at Bruce. The mutant had a pale pink blush spreading across his cheeks. “Let her in, Jarvis.” 

“Banner you were supposed to stop this nonsense, not encourage it.” Natasha burst through the doors in a whirlwind of movement, slamming the plate of sandwiches onto a quasi clean counter as she crossed to the back of the lab. 

“Stop what?” Bruce asked, torn between the hunger eating at his stomach and getting any closer to the angry assassin. 

“The 'gone for days on end because I'm a genius with an idea' thing.” She snapped before deflating like a balloon. “The rest of us worry.” She admitted softly. 

“That's how being a genius is, Tasha.” Tony shrugged, brushing past her to reach the plate. “Look, big guy! She even wrapped them in cellophane like mom used to.” The inventor tossed one to the mutant. “Or, Jarvis in any case.” He mused, peeling the sticky plastic off one. “Thanks, by the way.” 

“It was always my pleasure, sir.” The AI quipped. 

“He doesn't actually – ” The assassin began. 

“No, he's just programmed to react as if he had.” Tony reassured her. “I don't have my old butler's brain floating in a jar somewhere, fueling Jarvis's “human instincts”.” He frowned. “Do I?” 

“No, sir. My predecessors brain was cremated along with the rest of his remains.” 

“Regardless, there's four other people upstairs who are sitting around twiddling their thumbs because of what's going on down here.” Natasha broke off. “And it's not fair to us to be left wondering if were going to see you again this week. We care..” she finished, emotion thick in her throat. 

“We need thirty minuets to stabilize this project.” Bruce said gently. “We'll be right up.” 

“Make it forty-five, just in case.” Tony said quickly. Bruce looked over, eyebrow raised. 

“If you're not upstairs in forty-five minuets I'm going to let cap send Clint through the vent.” She threatened before disappearing. 

“Tony, we could honestly walk away right now and this would be fine.” Bruce said, turning to find the inventor was directly behind him. 

“Yes, but you have peanut butter on your lip.” Tony smirked, pulling Bruce down into a kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I am a resident of Austin (until I leave for NYC in August, go college!) and Ben Balmer is a local artist I adore. [Dug In ](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hST_rjLf-Fw) is the song Tony is singing in the shower, and is the first song I ever heard him do. I maintain, I don't generally like this type of music, but there's something about this brand of Austin specialty I love. I (like Tony) have his CD. 8)


	3. Chapter 3

Tony and Bruce meandered through central park, the cool night air pressing against their cheeks. In the distance they could hear a group of teenagers laughing, a melodious sound on the breeze. Bruce grinned at Tony, slipping his hand into the inventor's. Lamp light glinted off his teeth. 

“I think we're far enough away, Tony.” He laughed. “No one around to steal your brilliant invention.” 

“Our brilliant invention.” Tony corrected, getting on tip toes for a kiss. Bruce smiled again in response, consenting to the genius's chaste peck before pulling out his phone and hitting speed dial 1 (home). “Okay Jarvis, role tape.” He told the AI, setting up the flip camera. 

“This is going to be awesome.” Tony breathed, smile crinkling the corners of his eyes and smoothing the wrinkles from his forehead. Bruce couldn't help but be caught up in the moment. He knew happiness had given Tony a wide berth (much like the one it had given him); seeming to only slip into the inventor's life by accident, moments few and far between. Bruce was glad he could be here to share it with him. 

“Tape rolling.” Bruce told him. Tony smiled again, barley controlled glee skirting the edges of his lips. 

“The time is – ” The genius checked his watch. “Ten twenty-seven and six, seven, eight seconds.” The smile burst through the restraints Tony had attempted to put on it. With showman's flare, Tony flicked his coat sleeves up, showing a second watch on his right wrist. “Beam me up.” He winked, tapping the watch face. Blue light flared, starting on Tony's wrist and spreading to cover his body. Bruce would later swear he saw Tony give the vulcan hand salute before disappearing completely. 

The mutant nervously pulled out his phone watching the live feed Jarvis was feeding through it. They had estimated at least a thirty second delay. The seconds ticked past, each pulling Bruce's stomach further down the abyss it was dropping into. A blue light began to flicker on the transporter pad, softly at first, but growing brighter rapidly. Bruce's stomach found the bottom when Tony lurched off the pad, looking dazed. What if they had calculated incorrectly, and he was brain damaged? What if he lost an organ? 

“The time is Ten twenty-eight and twelve seconds.” The inventor whooped on the screen, spinning in a complete circle. “Jarvis, how'd I fare?” 

“Your body would appear to be intact. No loss of mass or function. Your brain is operating as it did before the jump.” 

“Okay Brucey.” Tony waved at the screen. “You can come home now.” 

“I'll see you soon.” Bruce said, switching to phone mode. “I'm going to pick something up on the way home.” 

“M'kay.” Tony replied, already lost in the readings. Bruce began the walk home by himself, stopping to get shawarma on the way. Tonight they were celebrating, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Science, it happens.


End file.
